


Iron Bull, Interrupted

by DarkBlue



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bath Sex, Bathing/Washing, Blow Jobs, Edging, Feeling not enough, Forced Orgasm, Getting Together, Hand Jobs, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Porn with Feelings, Prostate Massage, Rimming, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:55:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22684327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkBlue/pseuds/DarkBlue
Summary: Three times Dorian walked in on Iron Bull by accident. And once when Bull walked in on purpose.
Relationships: Female Adaar/Josephine Montilyet, Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 38
Kudos: 283
Collections: Actually Adoribull Fic





	Iron Bull, Interrupted

**Author's Note:**

> Getting into this ship and realizing there isn't enough content driving me to create the content that I want: a shit ton of sarcasm, friendship, and smut.

_Skyhold__________________________________________________________

“Can I hide in here? Sera is on the rampage again. So is Cassandra, incidentally, but they’re not –“

Dorian finally looked up from his manuscript, which he had been reading idly as he barged into the Iron Bull’s room in the tavern. The Herald’s Rest was quiet during the day, something the library at this time certainly wasn’t. And the men sparring outside, while a lovely sight, were a bit distracting.

“Hey Dorian,” said Bull easily. “Kinda busy.”

Dorian wrenched his gaze from the wide, startled blue eyes of the kitchen girl riding backwards on top of Iron Bull. She had been bouncing with great vitality, and now her legs were trembling with sweat as she stared, slack jawed, in horror. 

Dorian smiled brightly to cover his confusion. “Pardon me,” he said, then pointed vaguely over his shoulder. “The door was ajar. I should have knocked.”

“No, it was supposed to be,” said Iron Bull easily, as if his cock wasn’t buried to the balls in some girl, her ass to his face. “She likes the thrill of being caught.”

Dorian gave a short, sardonic bow to the slowly flushing kitchen maid. “I’m glad to be of service,” he nodded.

She tried to speak, but only sucked a ragged breath. Dorian was afraid she might cry, and backed for the door.

“I’ll just be going.” He glanced at Bull, who damn him, wasn’t even blushing. He only raised an acknowledging hand. “Should I shut the door?” he asked the girl.

She nodded faintly, unable to find her voice.

Dorian did so, and then walked away, his ears burning as the Iron Bull laughed his great booming laugh.

Dorian knew it wasn’t directed at him. He wasn’t exactly a _prude._ But his skin still prickled uncomfortably, and when Sera dumped an entire bucket of water on his shoulders over the balcony of the Herald’s Rest, Dorian did find a vent for his frustrations.

“This book is priceless!” he yelled up at her.

She stuck her tongue out, wispy blonde hair floating in front of her pink, shiny face. She had been sprinting to avoid Cassandra.

“Then you’d better catch me!”

Dorian charged up the stairs, and luckily made so much noise he definitely didn’t hear the rhythm of anything on the wood other than his own feet.

* * *

_The Hissing Wastes_______________________________________________

“It’s freezing,” said Dorian glumly, feeding another of their scarce logs to the fire.

“The desert gets cold at night,” grunted Blackwall, who had put his gloves on.

“Oh _thank you_ ,” said Dorian scathingly. “The desert gets cold at night. What a revelation.”

Blackwall did not rise to the bait, only shrugged his shoulders, scrubbing at his beard with his gloved fingers. “You’d best get some sleep. I’m awake enough.”

Dorian, grumbling, threaded his way back to the tent he, Blackwall, and Iron Bull shared. The Inquisitor was in with Leiliana’s people and Scout Harding. He had teased Harding about having a crush on Adaar, and Harding’s freckles had disappeared.

“I-I don’t!” she had stammered. “You haven’t told her that I do, have you? Because I don’t! I think she’s…tall!“ but she had trailed off when she realized Dorian was laughing at her.

“You ass,” she finished angrily.

“It’s too easy,” Dorian had sighed. “It’s no fun when it’s too easy.”

“You sound like Madame de Fer.”

“You could take notes from Lady Frost,” he had teased her, and then he had gone to bed. Bull had taken the first shift somewhere, and then Dorian had woken to relieve him. Now it was Blackwall’s turn and Dorian stumbled in the darkness back to the tent, where the Iron Bull’s heavy breathing was filling it.

He snored like a horse.

Dorian liked horses, but he wasn’t sure if they could snore. His horses had always come to him ready groomed, saddled, and fed. He had never had to –

“Maker’s breath!” he squeaked.

Bull casually glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “Enjoying the show?”

His ass was bare in the moonlight striping the interior of the empty tent. In the gloom, Dorian caught sight of slim dark hands and feet from where the unlucky soldier was on hands and knees beneath Bull.

Dorian swallowed.

It was different when it was men.

Dorian plastered an insouciant smile on his face to cover the strange molten feeling in his belly. It must have been fire, because his mouth was completely dry, and his throat swallowed to get moisture into it.

“Well, what a lovely surprise. And who do we have here?”

Bull obligingly tilted a shoulder, though the man beneath him was staring fixedly at the ground, looking as if he wanted to die.

“Ah, Scout Ranoh. A pleasure, as always. Though I suspect you might have the pleasurable end of this bargain.”

Ranoh lowered his forehead into the canvas floor, and Bull hummed at the shifting of the angle, still buried to the hilt inside him.

Dorian tried to smirk. Tried to make eye contact with Bull, who had winked at him, nodding his head in invitation.

Dorian wasn’t sure what the protocol here was. He and Bull flirted shamelessly, but that was just his personality. He was a flirt. A selfish Venatori flirt. Possibly, with all of the blowjobs he both received and was reported – wildly exaggerated by Sera of course – to have received, he was a selfish flirtatious Vint whore.

The Iron Bull was open about his sexual preference, which consisted of almost anything on two legs. Or in poor Ranoh’s case…

Well, the two of them got on well. When Sera was in the party, even slogging through a corpse ridden Fallow Mire was sort of fun. The amount of cursing and necromancy stiff jokes kept them all laughing, even through the rain and eerie fog.

Of course, Adaar was hardly any better. An exiled mercenary mage, she had grown up in similar parties all her life, and Dorian had grown rather fond of her, and rather too eager to let down his guard around a group whose sexual preference wasn’t their defining feature.

Like it had been his.

But Bull and he’s conversations carried the razor edge of competition of how far they could toe the line. Sera didn’t like competition, because she didn’t like losing, and she always rolled her eyes and told them to “cut it out, yeah?” when they were getting too deep into it.

And now Dorian was staring at Bull ass deep in another man, and he had the sinking suspicion he had found the line. Absurdly, he wished Sera was there. She would know exactly the most derogatory and crass thing to say to break the mood.

The Iron Bull’s smile flickered as his dark eye took in Dorian’s shadowed face. Dorian’s back was to the moonlight, and he was grateful. Bull had been raised – programmed – to notice. To observe.

“I’m not sure of the protocol in this situation,” said Dorian lightly. “But I shall take my leave of _my_ tent,” he added with a mocking, hard edge, to let Bull know he was fine.

Bull rippled his hips slightly in a mocking answer, and Ranoh ruined the moment by moaning into the floor.

“Well, carry on, obviously,” said Dorian gesturing. “It seems cruel to leave him like that.”

“Y-yes,” whispered Ranoh, straining against Iron Bull. “P-please.”

Dorian heard rather than saw Bull’s long arm snake around to cover Ranoh’s mouth, but he could certainly hear the unmistakable slap of skin on skin as Bull resumed his work with rather more force than Dorian would have suspected him using on a human.

The muffled ecstatic staccato was out of earshot by the time Dorian crossed to the girl’s tent.

Dorian opened the flap, and Harding, sleeping across the entrance, squinted at the moonlight.

“Go away,” she grumbled.

“Can I sleep in here?”

“Piss off,” she muttered.

Dorian took that as invitation so long as he closed the flap, and he stepped over her, feeling the brief space where a body might slip in.

He blushed even in the darkness when lowering himself he realized he had put his hand on the Inquisitor where probably no hand outside of Josephine’s should venture.

“Piss _off_!” said Harding and Adaar together.

And Dorian laughed into the crook of his elbow in a muffled, mortified way, until they all three fell back asleep.

*

“Hey,” said Iron Bull. It was almost lunch, and now Dorian was dripping sweat. His olive skin was turning away the worst of the sunburn, but poor Blackwall looked like a serving of shrimp, all mottled pink and white, his black hair stringy around his peeling ears.

“Hello you,” said Dorian indifferently.

“I wanted to apologize for yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Dorian enjoyed feigning ignorance.

“Last night.”

“This morning,” corrected Dorian, taking the water flask Bull offered him silently.

“Yeah. About that – “

“I should apologize,” said Dorian, quickly cutting in to steer the conversation away from the line they had found last night. The way Bull had opened the invitation, and how Dorian had pretended not to see.”I didn’t mean to interrupt yet another dalliance.”

“I lost track of time,” Bull admitted as they started slogging through the sand again. “I thought I had more time between when Blackwall left and when you’d be back.”

“It’s my fault,” Dorian laughed, and it was easy to laugh now, in the daylight. “I was freezing. I had hoped the tent would be warm at least.”

The Iron Bull did not laugh, only slanted only blue eye sideways down at Dorian. Dorian had read somewhere that exact shade of light blue in a dark blue ring was called _smalt_ eyed. Even thinking this made his mouth twitch.

Bull noticed, and frowned: “But we’re good?”

“Yes, yes,” Dorian waved a hand. His shoulder without a covering was turning a deep, painful red, and waving made him wince a little.

If Bull saw – Dorian knew he had, he saw everything – he didn’t say anything. He only sped up a little to leave Dorian, suddenly lonely, to walk behind him.

It also, unfortunately, left him a rather good view of Bull’s ass. He couldn’t help but flash back to seeing it the night before, grey white in the moonlight, the muscles clenched hard even as he nonchalantly stood, quietly trembling.

Dorian had to wrench his mind away from the loud trousers before him. They truly were spectacularly awful, a circus tent and a pirate ship colliding. Thinking about Bull’s clothing helped the heat in his face and body sweat itself out instead of coiling warmly in his stomach.

He was still a little hard when he had woke up this morning, but the tent was so crowded with him and the women inside that he hadn’t had a chance to do anything more than dart back to his own tent and change his clothes, wishing he had the time to pull himself off.

Now, sweating, staring at Bull’s ass, he was rather glad he hadn’t. He knew himself too well to guess the subject of the fantasy he would have indulged.

* * *

_Val Royeaux______________________________________________________

“The Inquisition!” the masked host at the outdoor café seemed genuinely happy to see Adaar and company. “Welcome! Welcome! Back so soon, how wonderful.”

“We had business in the city,” said Josephine, who was hovering near Adaar’s hand, her own fingers twitching as if she wanted comfort.

Dorian saw, and said nothing, turning to catch Vivienne’s eye. She raised an eyebrow, and Dorian smiled. Between the two of them, the twitching of Josephine’s fingers could have fueled Orlesian gossip for a month. But neither of them said anything, so as not to embarrass Adaar who already drew stares in public as it was.

Instead, Vivienne said in a normal, but carrying tone: “And how is that poor man we cut out of his wardrobe?”

Josephine flushed a delicate pink under the question, her hands quickly going to the back of her own chair to drag it out and sit down. “He is fine, though I believe the antique irreplaceable.”

“Fancy meeting you here,” said Varric. He was accompanied by Cassandra, Cullen, and Solas, the former of whom rolled her eyes hard as she sat down.

“Is Sera coming?” asked Adaar.

“No,” said Solas mildly. “And neither are Cole, Blackwall, or the Iron Bull.”

Dorian felt a mild swooping in his stomach at that. Disappointment?

“That’s probably for the best,” said Vivienne. “Sera can be a…messy eater.”

Dorian tilted his head at the chair beside him for Cullen, who gratefully took it. Varric sat across from him.

“So Sparkler, read anything good lately?”

“If you mean ancient genealogies of magisters from the First Age,” said Dorian dryly, “then yes.”

“And _Cassandra_ ,” Varric beamed. “What about you?”

“We’re not discussing this,” said Cassandra firmly, unfolding the napkin in her lap.

“But the others are still here in the city,” Josephine said hurriedly. “We left Leliana in charge of Skyhold, but we traveled together. They haven’t left, have they?”

“Oh no,” sighed Cassandra darkly. “They’ve set up a room for Cole –“

“The city upsets him,” Solas interrupted, concern etching his blank features. “There are too many people.”

“Well he seems to be doing fine,” said Varric with a slight edge to his tone. “We left the Iron Bull with him.”

“You left Bull with Cole?” Adaar wrinkled her nose, fighting a laugh. “He doesn’t like Cole.”

“Well the other options were Sera,” said Varric. “And she can’t stand him and won’t pretend.”

“Well what about Blackwall?” Dorian found himself volunteering, sipping from the water the waiter had just poured.

“He doesn’t like Cole either,” said Cullen. “But he won’t say why.”

“Because it’s a demon,” said Vivienne patiently. “And he’s a Grey Warden.”

Cullen grunted, and tore a piece of bread apart with his fingers.

Lightly, Dorian plucked half from his grasp without asking.

“Then if the Iron Bull is with Cole,” said Solas slowly, “then where is Sera?”

“I believe she is meeting up with some Red Jennys,” said Josephine from her end of the table.

Solas’ face cleared.

“Don’t be so dour, Chuckles,” said Varric cheerfully. “I’m sure Sera will get around to pranking you on the way back to Skyhold.”

Solas’ face took on a faint pained expression, but he only glanced down to smooth his napkin across his narrow knees.

“And Blackwall decided not to join us?” Cullen asked, looking a little desperate at his surrounding company. Dorian liked Cullen, but he also knew he didn’t do well with crowds. He was glad Cassandra was on his other side to buffer him in with people he knew well, but sorry he was across from Solas, whom Cullen seemed at a loss how to interact with.

“Warden Blackwall is not comfortable in Val Royeaux,” said Vivienne clearly down the table.

Everyone turned to look at her in surprise.

She shrugged delicate shoulders out of one of her high-necked sleeveless gowns. It was snow white. “He doesn’t stray far from the stables, or from the inn.”

“It must be all of the time he has spent recruiting for the Grey Wardens,” said Cassandra decidedly.

Dorian wasn’t sure if Cassandra knew any other way to speak. She was a very decided woman.

“Shall we order?” asked Josephine brightly.

Dorian picked up his menu and sipped from his glass again, relaxing into the company.

It was a long lunch, more than two hours. In that time, the companions slipped off one by one. Cullen left surprisingly with Solas. Solas had wanted to check the supplies of the caravan for elfroot in case he needed to purchase stock, and Cullen had jumped up in gratitude. Varric had left to trawl through used bookstores for his own books; Vivienne had gone shopping in High Street with a pink cheeked Adaar, who had tried to protest the shops wouldn’t carry anything in her size.

Vivienne had seemed scandalized. “My dear, don’t tell me you shop _off the rack_?”

Josephine was deep in discussion with Cassandra, who had moved down the table, about a book series they both enjoyed, thoroughly ribbing the absent Varric in spurts.

Dorian realized he was left finishing the wine, and though Josephine had been kind enough to beckon him over to join them, he stood instead, giving a short and courteous bow.

“I’m afraid not, ladies,” he said ruefully. “I am turning into quite the old man, and was hoping for a good nap this afternoon as we’ll be attending the party tonight before our departure.”

They waved him off, and Dorian crossed through the shadowed porch to the stairs in the back recess that led up to the inn hotel above, its shutters the Orlesian blue that the town was famous for.

He had some thoughts of relieving Iron Bull from his duty of watching Cole. The boy was – well, not a boy. He was a spirit, and prone to lapses of judgement and attention span. As a mage, he didn’t mind Cole so long as he kept his long white fingers out of Dorian’s memories.

The Inquisition had taken a block of rooms on the third floor, and every door in the hallway was theirs. All things being equal, they shared two to a room. Dorian shared with Cullen, which he suspected Josephine had arranged, knowing their comfort playing chess together. Cullen, predictably, had brought his chess board, and the last two nights in Val Royeaux had been spent playing amicably while Dorian dragged Cullen’s family stories out of him. He seemed particularly fond of his sister Mia, but Dorian had never worked up the blasé courage to ask if Mia was still alive. Cullen spoke of his family only in the past tense.

Solas, of course, bunked with Cole. Blackwall with Varric. Adaar and Josephine, of course. Vivienne and Cassandra. Sera and the Iron Bull, which made a sort of sense as Bull put up with her better than anyone save perhaps Varric or Dorian himself. At the very least Bull could pick her up by one shoulder and hold her above the floor if she got too rowdy, which he had done at least twice in the past two days.

Dorian made his way to Solas’ room and knocked. There was no answer, and he tried the door. The room was empty, the two beds neatly made. He cursed.

He walked to his own room. Likewise empty. He was tempted to lay on his bed and let Cole be someone else’s problem, but of the four mages, he was probably the second most sympathetic to Cole as a person.

Sighing, Dorian checked the other rooms: Blackwall was in his room, but he looked confused when Dorian asked about Cole. There was a glitter in his eye that made Dorian sigh. Cole had made him forget.

Both Cassandra and Josephine’s rooms were empty, and without thinking Dorian turned the handle on the last door. For a moment, heart in his throat, he thought he had found Cole, and was glad.

Then he realized the young man on the bed only looked vaguely like Cole, with yellow straight hair and moles on his light, flushed skin. He was tied to the bed, and very naked, and his eyes were hidden by a blindfold, though his face was craning towards the door.

“I seem to be putting my foot in it more and more often,” said Dorian apologetically to Iron Bull, who was standing over the young man holding – strangely enough – a long, flexible paintbrush. He had paused in surprise.

“Dorian.” He didn’t look pleased to see Dorian, which made Dorian feel guilty at the interruption.

“Have you seen Cole?” he asked instead.

“Cole?”

“Yes. Yellow hair. Not a person?”

Bull’s eye had the glitter in it too, but when he shook his great horned head like a dog shaking water, his expression cleared. He looked down at the bed guiltily.

“I was supposed to be watching him.”

“No matter,” said Dorian lightly. Trying to pretend they weren’t talking from two sides of a bed holding down a bound stranger, erect and glistening in the afternoon sunshafts. “I’ll find him when he wants to be found, I expect.”

“I am sorry,” said Bull, sounding truly regretful.

“Please,” Dorian waved a hand. “Do continue. Don’t let me ruin it.”

“You could never ruin it,” said Bull, quirking a smile that tugged at the scar in the corner of his mouth.

“You flatter me,” said Dorian vaguely, pulling the door fast as he backed out of the room.

“I thought The Iron Bull was supposed to be watching me,” said a voice.

Dorian turned, and Cole was standing in the middle of the hallway, his large floppy hat obscuring his face as he inspected his feet. A spirit couldn’t feel guilt, Dorian reminded himself. And yet Cole looked guilty.

“What now?” Dorian sighed, catching Cole’s always surprisingly solid elbow and leading him back to Solas’ room.

“They didn’t want me,” said Cole, in his carefully blank voice. Dorian reminded himself that spirits couldn’t be defensive. “They both wanted to be left alone. Blackwall is scared. He wants to say in his room _they can’t find out they’ll hang me for sure_. _I didn’t know the children would be there – I told them to kill them all – I – “_

“Cole,” said Dorian firmly. He knew Cole was pulling out Blackwall’s memories, but Dorian didn’t want to hear what the Blight had done to the Warden.

Cole looked up at Dorian steadily. “The Iron Bull wanted to be left alone for fun. _Skin grasping, burning fingertips digging into my hips. Pulling, tugging, squirming. I can’t get away. I can’t see, I have to – to –“_

“That’s enough,” said Dorian sharply.

Cole subsided.

Spirits couldn’t look guilty.

“And you just left?” Dorian asked.

Cole nodded his big hat. “There is a hospital here. Only for the rich. It isn’t a hospital though. It is a house of the dying.”

“And?” Dorian said sharply. “Did you kill anyone?”

Cole hesitated, then slowly shook his head. “The Inquisitor wouldn’t like it. She said she didn’t like it when I did it before.”

Dorian felt something in his chest loosen, and he patted Cole’s shoulder absently. “Good boy. I’m glad.”

Cole beamed at him. “I helped them, though.”

“But no killing?”

Cole shook his head. “Just helping. No hurting.”

“Good boy,” said Dorian again, and Cole happily crossed his legs on his bed.

Dorian sat with him until Solas came in, and then gratefully stretched out in his bed for his nap before the party.

* * *

_Skyhold__________________________________________________________

Celene was still the Empress. Dorian hadn’t counted on that happening. He had thought for sure Gaspard would have come through victorious if he hadn’t revealed himself to be such a short-sighted grasping sort of man.

Dorian sighed. He was tired, but had no reason to be. In the days after the Winter Palace, Josephine had begged Adaar not to venture out until the politics had calmed down. For the past two weeks, Adaar had been spending time in the Undercroft with Dagna, Sera finding excuses to venture in. The rest of the companions had let out a long, shared, but unacknowledged breath.

Blackwall was becoming even more reclusive, hardly leaving the stable, even for mealtimes, preferring to eat anonymously around a campfire with the soldiers than in the tavern.

Solas was often meditating on his scaffolding, Cole watching him curiously. Leiliana was so busy in the wake of Celene’s victory that the library was cacophonous with the cawing of her black birds. Iron Bull trained with his Chargers, but even the company didn’t venture out on any contracts signed at the war table.

Dorian had spent his days researching Corypheus, penning long letters with Helisma, the tranquil research assistant, to request books from other libraries, and even consenting to work with Vivienne in teaching mine trap spells to the apostates they had gathered. Dorian had lost an entire set of robes to an errant fire mine, and he had been very disgruntled to have to fade step in spurts back to his room to avoid being seen in nothing but tatters and entirely too much thigh. Vivienne hadn’t exactly _laughed_ , but Dorian had never been so humiliated to catch someone’s eye over the dinner table in the great hall as he had been that evening.

Today it had been lightning spells. Dorian was handy with lightning. It worked hand in hand with necromancy, though he didn’t scare the apostates with his evil Tevinter ways by mentioning it.

He was a little frazzled – pun intended, even to himself – but at least he had stood up for more than ten minutes at a time. Lately his back had become a solid painful ache by the end of each day hunched over a chair or sitting in his wingbacked chair staring out the window, pretending to be reading.

His rooms were in the interior of Skyhold. He felt lucky to have them, even if they were a mess of corridors to navigate when he wasn’t completely sober. Back at Haven, he had slept in a wooden outbuilding that was hardly better than a shack _and_ had shared with Adan, the poor bastard alchemist who had burned up alive. His screams still woke Dorian, sometimes. But he tried not to think of them.

Instead, he thought of the hot bath he would take. Conjuring water enough to fill the tub and then heating it was an easy task, and Dorian didn’t make the servants haul the buckets for him, which he was fairly certain earned him a little more in the way of care.

He flicked a hand at the fire as he entered his room. Immediately it roared to life, and the torches in the brackets lit themselves. He stopped, flummoxed. The Iron Bull sat on the foot of his bed, his hands clasped between his knees, grinning a lopsided smile.

“Bull,” said Dorian crisply, recovering himself. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

The door clicked shut behind him, and he had an odd twisting in his stomach that he had sealed some deal he hadn’t been aware of.

Bull opened his mouth, clearly having a sort of speech rehearsed, then shut it. Unexpectedly, he laughed and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Ah fuck,” he said cheerfully. “I had the seduction all planned out, too.”

Dorian stopped in his tracks, one hand still held over the empty washtub to fill it with water. A single droplet fell from his fingertip. He watched it fall, and could feel Bull’s gaze on it too.

“Sorry?” he asked, his voice slightly higher than he would have liked. “I believe you said you wanted to _seduce_ me?”

“Well you’ve been walking in on me an awful lot,” said Bull jokingly, but Dorian knew him well enough to see the frozen shoulders. The wondering if he had misread something.

Dorian paused. “Those were accidents,” he said slowly. “I know…three times is quite a lot.”

“That’s true,” said Bull evenly. “And it got me thinking. You’re good looking-“

“A fair bit more than good-looking, I should hope.”

“Okay, you’re gorgeous, and your ass is perfect. Better?” said Bull obligingly. He didn’t even sound like he was teasing, and unexpectedly Dorian’s cheeks heated.

Bull looked pleased. “Okay, good. For a second, I thought I was way off my game.”

“Your game?”

Bull winced. “Ah shit, okay, that came out badly.”

“What on earth did you think you were going to say?”

Iron Bull grinned. “Nah, you wouldn’t like it now. The mood is ruined.”

“Why? What was it? Was it terribly corny?”

“Horribly,” Bull grinned wolfishly.

“Oh, now I’m intrigued,” said Dorian lightly, perching on the foot of the bed as far as he could get from Bull.

Bull looked pleased he had sat at all. “It was crass.”

“I do enjoy when you’re crass.”

“You like my filthy mouth?”

This time Dorian flushed a little more, and tried not to show the way his spine prickled.

Bull’s smile was slow and warm.

Dorian turned his face away and picked at the coverlet on the bed. There were some stray fibers he worked between his fingers.

“Oh it’s bad,” Bull continued after the moment lingered unpleasantly tingling.

“I’m aware. I would expect nothing less.”

“All right then, if you’re sure.”

“Do you worst.”

“A challenge?” Bull could make anything sound filthy.

“Tell me.”

“I was going to say, really dramatically mind you, ‘ _So you want to ride the bull.’”_

Dorian laughed, his dark eyes flashing up to Bull’s single piercing blue one. _Smalt_ , his brain reminded him. That dark ring of blue around the purest sky.

“That was awful,” he said lightly. “Very well done.”

“Yes, well, statistically speaking, it’s worked very well for me.”

“No,” said Dorian horrified. “That’s _worked?”_

“Many times.”

“How many?”

“Dunno. Maybe twenty.”

“ _Twenty_ people fell for that?”

Bull’s wolfish grin was back, stretching the scar on one side of his mouth. “Stupid isn’t it?”

“Maker’s breath, I’m glad I didn’t.”

“I’m not,” said Bull, and for a moment Dorian almost laughed, but the mood had shifted abruptly between them.

“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “You caught me off guard.”

“I thought you’d be interested.”

“I thought I would be too.”

“And you aren’t?”

“I-“ Dorian hesitated, and Bull studied him.

“It’s okay if you aren’t,” he said quickly.

“It’s not what you think,” said Dorian just as quickly.

“And what should I think?” said Bull appraisingly. “Because of the horns?”

“Oh don’t be stupid,” said Dorian angrily, scathingly. “Don’t make this about Tevinter.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No!”

“Not about you being shy about being-“

“Stop it,” snapped Dorian, and Bull looked ashamed of himself.

“Hey,” he said slowly. “That one was on me. Completely outta line.”

“No,” said Dorian sucking in another breath. He put his hand out to Iron Bull’s forearm. He held it for a moment in apology, and Bull turned his forearm up, sliding it from Dorian’s grip until their hands were linked instead.

“No,” he said slower, watching with Bull as his skin flushed beneath the careful tracing fingers. Was silent as Bull rested an innocuous finger on his pulse, as if they both didn’t know exactly what he was doing. As if they both couldn’t feel the racing of his heart.

Bull’s eye finally snapped up to his, taking his breath away. “Then why?” he asked simply. “I’m not trying to –“

“I know,” said Dorian quickly.

“I just wanted to know. I like you, Dorian.”

“I like you too,” Dorian blurted. “Maker help me, too much, I think.”

Bull’s smile curled up around one ear as if on a wire. “Yeah? You liked watching me fuck those guys. I could see the way you wouldn’t look.”

“ _Wouldn’t_ look?” Dorian sputtered. “That’s entirely unfair. I was being-“

“Right.”

“Right,” sighed Dorian, instead staring at how delicate and small his hand looked in Bull’s. He found it appealing. He liked feeling beautiful instead of monstrous. Too often here, he felt like the monster out of every child’s fairytale.

And it was true.

Blood magic, corpse magic, sexual deviancy, selfishness –

“Dorian,” Bull said his name, and Dorian reflexively uncurled his fingers where he had been clenching them. To his chagrin, one hand had wrapped around Bull’s thumb and squeezed.

“It’s because of this,” said Dorian quietly.

“The hand holding?” Bull asked, just as gently. He let go. “I’m sorry. I won’t try it-“

“No. The…the…”

Bull waited patiently.

Dorian tried a different tact.

“You’re very smart, you know that?”

Iron Bull looked surprised and nonplussed at the non sequitur. “Er…thanks? I guess?”

“No, no, you are,” Dorian continued, now entwining his own hands, feeling the loss of Bull’s acutely. “People don’t see that because of your size, and because you don’t want them to.”

Bull was silent.

Dorian continued: “You want people to see an average man. A big man, given, with horns, sure, but someone to be drinking buddies with. Somebody to fight with. Somebody who has your back, and doesn’t like uncomplicated things like books.”

Bull quirked a smile, his gaze running lightly over Dorian’s room, strewn with books.

“And so you just…play this role. Play the role of a big oaf. _Ride the bull_ , indeed. You’re delicious to look at and by all rumors a fantastic fuck. You can pick up gossip and intelligence when you sleep with the serving girls and the construction builders. You’re just one of them, right? Just a big dumb lug missing an eye and swinging a big heavy tool.”

Iron Bull snorted faintly, but he wasn’t looking at Dorian. He was watching Dorian’s hands threading fingers together.

Dorian returned to looking at them.

“I think…I think if you really were like that, I would sleep with you.”

“Yeah?” Bull said quietly. “And not me now?”

“It’s because you’re too smart,” Dorian mocked complainingly. “And I think you and I both know I like to be the cleverest person in the room.”

“Dorian,” said Bull quietly.

Dorian let out a noisy breath. “Yes, well, that’s still true, you know.”

“I know.” Bull waited.

After half a minute of groping for words, Dorian continued.

“You’re too smart,” he said again. “You _notice_ too much. You’re too observant.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“No, not at all! It makes you a wonderful commanding officer. You have the trust of Leiliana, which is an Andrastan-sent miracle. You bring valuable information to the Inquisition.”

“But?”

“But…it’s not…I don’t…” Dorian struggled for words.

“Don’t want me looking at you?”

Dorian nodded silently.

“Why?”

“Well it’s true I enjoy being looked at.” Dorian couldn’t help but try to insert some of their usual banter, their teasing, trying to pull the conversation back on familiar, stable ground. But for once, Bull didn’t rise to the easy bait, and waited, hands folded, eye now studying Dorian’s face.

Dorian wished he hadn’t said the looking part.

“Stop that,” he said fondly, tugging on Bull’s hands to rip his gaze away. “That’s just what I mean. Too clever by half. How can I dazzle you when I know how quickly you’ll see through my lovely illusion?”

Bull was quiet so long that Dorian let go of his hands in guilt and shame, and glanced up.

The look on Iron Bull’s face wasn’t censorious, or even amused. It was only very, very kind.

Dorian couldn’t stand it and looked away again, waving vaguely at Bull’s face. “Yes, see. That? There? Terrible. The worst. Absolutely. How dare you patronize me.”

“I’m not pat-“

“You can’t possibly want to be good to me.”

“And why not?”

“Because,” and Dorian leaned forward, his voice light and teasing as if imparting a secret. One that wasn’t ripping him up from the inside. “I’m not a good person.”

“Dorian.”

“I’m not.”

“Dorian-“

“Do you remember the first time we met?”

“I-“

“No, you don’t,” Dorian continued ruthlessly. “It’s not real anymore. I met you for the first time as a living lyrium statue, dying of blood poisoning.”

Bull was silent.

“And what did you do for a man you had just met? You died for him. Willingly. _Gladly_. What kind of fool does that? I certainly wouldn’t.”

“D-“

“Stop saying my name.” And Dorian was surprised at the venom in his own voice. “You don’t get to be kind to me. You don’t get to pretend we’re equals. You should have been a dumb lug. Then I wouldn’t feel half so bad using you for my bed when I could never do that here. That I would have to –“

“Care?” suggested Bull quietly.

“Shut up.”

Bull was silent, but watchful, and there was such concern, such deep seated pity on his face Dorian stood up to pace to be away from it.

“You see? There? This look on your face. I know what it is. You see this poor broken thing. Oh the poor Magister’s son like a broken poppet look how twisted his limbs are and how small his heart is and how grotesquely disfigured he is. I’ll fix him up. I will twist him the right way round. I will make sure he’s not-“

“Dorian,” said Bull, infinitely patiently. “This isn’t Tevinter.”

Dorian spun on him angrily. “Don’t you tell me _! – I – “_

He stopped. Ashamed of himself. Not knowing where else to obey the strong desire to _flee_ to _hide_ , he climbed into the empty tub and drew his knees up to his face.

Several very long minutes passed.

Dorian could hear the echo of his own ragged breathing reverberating around the tub as he controlled himself. How would he ever face Iron Bull after this? Perhaps Bull would just leave, and they could both pretend this had never happened.

“Dorian?” Iron Bull’s quiet voice coming over the edge of the tub told Dorian he hadn’t moved from his seat.

“Dorian isn’t here,” he said childishly. “He’s died of absolute mortification and hopes we can move past this and just stay as good friends.”

“I can’t.”

That brought Dorian’s head snapping up. “Oh don’t be melodramatic,” he griped. “Don’t get hung up on me.”

“I’m not.”

“Oh.” Why was that such a depressing revelation? It had been flattering to think Bull was interested in him, instead of offering himself simply because he liked good sex and pretty men.

“I can’t move past this because I didn’t realize that’s how you thought.”

“About what?” Dorian was getting a bit peevish to be talking to the side of a metal washtub, but too stubborn to actually climb out of it.

A dark shadow, and the looming form of Bull standing over the tub. His face was neutral and forbidding in the cast shadow. He reached out a hand while Dorian ducked it, grumbling.

Bull grumbled too, squatting down and using the lip of the basin to steady himself so they could be eye to eye.

Childishly, Dorian looked away. How dare Bull be kind to him when he was purposefully being an ass?

“I can’t believe you think that about yourself.”

“Yes well,” and Dorian could feel himself flushing. “I’m very good at spotting unfortunate truths.”

“Dorian.” And Bull reached out a hand to carefully touch Dorian’s face.

Dorian saw the hand coming and braced for it. Something in Bull’s face flickered and he paused. As he paused, he lost his balance with his bad knee and sat back hard. He was still holding the rim of the tub, and his weight tipped Dorian onto his chest, knocking them both flat on the floor.

They grunted at the impact, and then Dorian was sprawled out atop Bull, his flaming mortification sizzling up and down his entire body as he stared inches away from Bull’s stone cut lips. His blue eye was a target, ringed and the iris blown black and wide, pulling Dorian dizzingly in.

“You’re too clever,” Dorian tried to protest, pushing himself up, but a big arm snaked up over his lower back and held him in place. Dorian squeaked.

Face flaming, he felt his cock twitch between their stomachs.

Bull chuckled darkly. “Oh, so you like being tied up?”

“Don’t you start,” said Dorian, but his mind was fixed on the way Bull had casually turned, still buried to the hilt in the scout. Or how he had held the paintbrush over the soldier’s body.

“I think that’s a yes,” murmured Bull tilting his head forward and bumping Dorian’s nose with his own broken one.

But because he was Iron Bull, he didn’t kiss Dorian, only held the dreadful intimacy an inch apart, staring intently at Dorian’s face.

“You don’t want to sleep with me,” Dorian tried to explain, his breath hot in the space between their faces. He wished he had been chewing mint.

“I speak for myself,” said Bull easily. “So yeah, I’m pretty sure I want to fuck you.”

His words sent an electric jolt through Dorian, and he tensed against it.

Bull smiled angelically in the space between their mouths.

“You rotten dirty trickster,” Dorian fumed. “How dare you try to seduce me.”

“Try,” Bull reminded him. “Still trying.”

A beat.

“Is it working?”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m going for.”

Dorian laughed then, and dropped his head into Bull’s cheekbone instead of kissing him. “You’re an insufferable know it all.”

“If it helps you to think so.”

“No, no, that is a fact.”

“All right then. It’s also a fact that I count you as one of the best men I have ever known.”

Unexpectedly, Dorian’s eyes filled with tears, and he turned his face sharply away, into Bull’s neck.

“You are generous with your time. You left everything you had to warn us. You did the right thing when it wasn’t easy. You-“

“That’s enough,” said Dorian firmly, having mastered his watering eyes. He stopped Bull with his mouth covering his.

“Don’t try to –“ began Bull, but Dorian bit him, hard, on his bottom lip.

Beneath his body, Iron Bull bucked up as if he had been shocked by one of Dorian’s lightning spells, and he grinned against Bull’s face.

Iron Bull made a sound in his throat as Dorian swiped at the roof of his mouth with his tongue.

“Hang on,” Bull said, and sat up, scooting backwards against the bed. He opened his legs and arms, offering Dorian a mute place on his lap.

Dorian paused. This was the line.

They had found it after all.

If he stayed here, Bull would lower his arms. They would straighten their clothes.

He would leave.

Dorian didn’t make a conscious choice. For once, he wasn’t the monster in the story. But treated like something cherished. Something good.

He crawled into Iron Bull’s arms, and Bull grinned a soft, happy, foolish grin before he plunged his face into Dorian’s neck and made him yelp a whimper when he bit down.

“None of this means I agree with what you say,” Dorian managed to gasp as Iron Bull began licking hot stripes down his neck where he had nipped him.

“Yes, well perhaps you should have been the dumb one,” Bull grumbled.

“And who says I’m not?” said Dorian, thinking of his present circumstances.

Bull hummed happily into his neck. “I’m glad we can agree on something.” He captured Dorian’s mouth and it was several mind melting seconds before Dorian popped away saying,

“Wait – “

Bull chortled against his throat, and Dorian shuddered beneath him.

Iron Bull pulled away to survey him, a slow, fiendish smile carving his features.

“What?”

“I didn’t know you were so sensitive.”

“I’m not!” Dorian protested, but it ended in an undignified squeak as Bull dragged the tips of his fingers up the inside of one of Dorian’s arms.

Damn it.

“Tell me,” said Bull, pulling him closer. His hands were vises around Dorian’s elbows, locking him in place, intoxicated in the swirl of Bull’s gaze. “When was the last time someone touched you?”

“What?” scoffed Dorian. “I was with a soldier-“

“With?”

“Yes, with. Sexu-“

“Did he suck you off?”

“Yes, but-“

“Did you fuck?”

“No, but-“

“When did you fuck someone last?”

“A few weeks ago,” Dorian admitted.

“And you topped?”

“Yes,” and his face was flaming at the merciless grilling. Dorian didn’t mind being casually open about his sexual exploits, but pinned between Bull’s knees as Bull slowly rubbed hard thumbs into the tender skin on the inside of his elbow was making him shiver and stammer like a schoolboy.

“And when,” purred Bull, his eye lidding over as his gaze flicked around parts of Dorian’s mouth, waiting for him to lie. “When was the last time someone touched you like this?”

“I-I don’t know wha-“

“The last time someone tied you up and took you apart?”

Dorian swallowed the sound from the back of his throat, but not before Bull’s smile grew expontentially.

“That long, huh?” he said casually, leaning forward and sucking on a spot under Dorian’s unshaven jaw.

Dorian tried to lean back, trembling. It was too much too quickly, but Bull followed him back, his breath hot and merciless until he drew back to Dorian’s mouth and kissed him senseless. He let go at last, and Dorian sank back on his heels weakly, rubbing a hand over swollen lips.

“Look at you,” said Bull mock-despairingly. “So touch starved that you’re almost over the edge from me just holding you.”

“ _Touch_ starved,” sputtered Dorian. The term strung an ugly chord with him.

 _Monster monster monster no one would be gentle with_ you.

Bull pulled on the straps holding Dorian’s leather top piece in place. “I’m going to take you apart now,” he promised quietly. “So gently, so smooth, that every time you see me my hands will be on your skin.”

Dorian swallowed his dry mouth. He tried to speak and failed, letting Bull’s clever large fingers push the leather off his shoulders and down his arms where it pooled in the crook of his elbows. His fingers were curled palm up on his thigh, and he stared dazed at Bull.

Bull’s face softened. He reached a hand out and cupped Dorian’s jaw and behind his ear, his fingers finding his pulse point easily.

“Feel that,” he murmured. “The thundering of your heart.”

Dorian flushed beneath Bull’s fingers and turned his face sharply away, suddenly ashamed.

“Don’t,” said Bull softly.

Dorian wrenched his chin out of Bull’s grip, knowing even as he did so it was only because Bull let him.

“Do you have a safeword?”

Dorian hesitated. “A series,” he said almost inaudibly.

Bull seemed pleased, and he cupped Dorian’s face between his hands like he was holding a precious thing, and Dorian flushed in anger and shame. Why couldn’t Bull just fuck him and leave? Why did he have to make a production of it?

He leaned forward to hide his face, to press his mouth against Bull’s to hurry him, but Bull didn’t let him move, only cradled his face gently, arms not even straining as Dorian leaned his weight against him.

“Tell me,” he commanded.

Dorian let his gaze flick to Bull’s chin. Easier than the eyes. Let him think he was looking at his mouth hungrily.

“Green means go,” he recited. These were taught to him by a whore in a body house in Tevinter. They had been friends, of a sort.

Dorian pushed thoughts of Kilant away.

“Green means go harder. Faster. More.”

Iron Bull nodded, waited.

“Yellow means slow down. Just pause a minute.” Dorian half-smiled at this one. “I almost always use yellow when I’m too close.”

Bull’s answering smile was radiant as the sun, even as Dorian could see the tight focus in the corner of his eye, committing the list to memory.

“Orange means pause. Usually because something doesn’t feel right, or the angle isn’t working. Orange means we should reposition or stop the thing we are doing, but we can continue other things.”

“And stop?” asked Bull lightly, as if he couldn’t guess the answer.

“Red is stop,” said Dorian. “Stop everything. I’m done.”

“And your safeword?”

Dorian’s brow wrinkled. “I just told you them.”

“No, you told me stop.”

“And?”

“A safeword is more than stop,” said Bull, in his most patient, instructional tone. The kind he used when teaching the Chargers a new formation. “It means we stop, and we don’t talk about it.”

Despite himself, Dorian was intrigued. He did like not talking about things, for all that he was so verbose.

“So if I said red for stop,” he said slowly.

Bull’s hands drifted down Dorian’s bare arms, stroking the skin on the top of his biceps with a feathery light touch that brought goosebumps to his skin. “We’d stop,” he promised. “But I’d want to know what went wrong. I’d want to fix it for next time.”

“What if it isn’t you?” Dorian asked, half-thinking to himself.

Bull’s hands stilled and he looked serious. “That’s what the safeword is for.”

Dorian swallowed, but nodded.

“I understand.”

“I use Katoh,” Bull offered. “It means, ‘All end,’ in the roughest translation.”

“Katoh,” repeated Dorian quietly. “I understand.”

“And you’ll remember?” Bull pressed.

Dorian hesitated. He both wanted to use it immediately, and to never use it at all. Instead, he nodded irresolutely, and Bull looked pained.

“Dorian-“

“Let’s get on with it, won’t you?” Dorian teased lightly.

Bull dropped his hands, and Dorian’s skin felt cold without them. He stared at Bull, puzzled. “What?”

“You are touch starved, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“What?” Dorian tried to laugh. “I’ve told you, I’m not celibate if that’s what you’re-“

“Does it hurt?” Bull interrupted, and the question was so surprising, Dorian stopped talking.

“Hurt?” he smiled in spite of himself. “Of course it doesn’t hurt. It feels divine when you touch me.”

“Even here?” And Bull cupped Dorian’s face, and Dorian jerked involuntarily.

Bull dropped his hands, nodding to himself.

“No, don’t be silly,” Dorian protested. “It doesn’t matter. I-“

“It matters,” said Bull heavily. “I’m sorry. I should have realized.”

“Bull, don’t be moronic,” snapped Dorian. “I’m ready and willing, you’re a fantastic fuck, I’m over my hang ups about you being too clever, so put your brain away and kiss me now.”

But Iron Bull only rubbed his face with one hand as if thinking hard.

“It doesn’t _hurt_ ,” Dorian pressed. “I was just surprised. I-“

“There’s more than one kind of hurt,” said Bull flatly. “We learn that in the Qun.”

That shut Dorian up. He stared at Bull, angry and confused.

“No, no, I-“ Bull grunted to himself, almost a string of syllables growled so deep that Dorian couldn’t understand them.

“I’m going about this the wrong way,” he said finally, pushing off the bed to his feet.

“You’re leaving?” Dorian asked, panicking mildly. He had never been _refused_ before. He wasn’t sure he liked it.

He flailed when his jacket yanked his arms together as he tried to pull himself after Bull. Scowling, he shirked it on the floor and scrambled after him.

“Stop,” he said. Then:

“ _Katoh_.”

Bull paused at the door, unwillingly turning to face Dorian.

“You shouldn’t use it lightly,” he said darkly.

“I’m not,” and Dorian found he was almost crying. “Please. Bull. Don’t leave.”

Bull sighed a huge breath again, rubbing his face, before he held out one arm. “Come here.”

Hesitatingly, Dorian stepped into the shadow of Bull’s outstretched arm. He allowed himself to be tucked to Bull’s bare skin, feeling how his own flushed chest fit into the contours of Bull’s side. He felt the tightening of Bull’s fingers into his shoulder before the second arm wrapped around his head and neck, sheltering him from the light.

Dorian closed his eyes.

After a moment, Bull smoothed his lips on the top of Dorian’s hair. “You’re trembling,” he murmured.

“Because,” Dorian couldn’t help but half laugh. “You see too clearly, I think. It has been a _very_ long time in the way that you mean.”

“I was going to bind you,” said Bull slowly. “But I see what you need is to be unbound.”

“What I _need_?” Dorian scoffed lightly, his mouth still near Bull’s chest warming his skin. “Are you one of those insufferable people that tries to determine what I _want_ and what I _need_?”

“Yes,” said Bull simply into his hair.

Dorian pushed against Bull’s chest, and was allowed to back up a few steps.

“What I _need_ ,” he said, faintly sarcastic, “Is food and water and a place to sleep.”

“That’s the basics, sure,” Bull shrugged. “Then the Qun teaches after that you need security, acceptance, belonging, and love.”

“Well that’s absurd,” scoffed Dorian.

“Is it?”

“Yes! Obviously. I just said it was. Nobody _needs_ those things. Those are things people _want_. But –“

“But if they don’t have them, people die,” said Bull flatly. “People who don’t feel safe barely live in survival mode. People who don’t feel accepted don’t find safety. People who don’t feel loved don’t want to stick around at all.”

“That’s all very well and good,” said Dorian, getting exasperated and glaring up at Bull. “I’m not quite in those dire straits. I’m only begging for sex.”

To his surprise, Bull ran a careful finger under one of his eyes. “And that’s why it’s my job to know what you need, and not listen to your mouth.”

Dorian flushed up at the entendre, even as Bull slipped the tip of a finger between his lips.

Dorian sucked in a startled breath, and his tongue laved the tip of Bull’s skin.

A slow grin spread over his face, and Dorian rolled his eyes.

“Can we please get on with it?”

“Well now,” said Bull, hitching his pants and grin together. “I feel like going slowly.”

Dorian grumbled under his breath but shrugged. “I’d still like to be tied up.”

“You _want_ to be tied up.”

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

“I heard you.”

“You’re not going to do that, are you?”

“Not today.”

Dorian pouted.

Bull grabbed his cheeks hard between his fingers, and Dorian found his hips jolting without warning. He blushed under Bull’s fingers even as he struggled to look him in the eye.

“Do you know what I’d do with someone who was starving?” He didn’t wait for Dorian’s answer. “I’d feed him. People always say you give a starving man a feast, but you don’t. You have to ease him into food on broth.”

“ _Broth_?” squawked Dorian. “That’s-“

“I’m probably going to have to gag you.”

Dorian glared around his distended cheeks.

“Unless you agree not to talk anymore.”

“I love talking,” said Dorian stubbornly.

Bull shrugged, unconcerned. “Gag it is.”

“No, no, fine. I’ll be good,” Dorian promised.

Iron Bull made an unconvinced noise, but unexpectedly lifted Dorian up by his forearms like he was moving a chair. Dorian’s knees hit the back of the bed.

“I’m gross,” he warned. “I haven’t taken a bath yet.”

Bull’s face lit up. “Oh really?”

Dorian flushed under the scrutiny. “But you don’t care, so let’s-“

“No, no, fill the tub.”

Bull was already hurriedly setting the tub upright, his face expectant.

Dorian flushed. Would he never stop blushing around Bull? He never had cause to before, even interrupting his trysts.

“Oh I don’t think-“ he began, but Bull sidled around behind him and wrapped huge arms around his bare chest.

Dorian fell silent at the insistent bulge at his back that made his own cock given a violent, untouched twitch. Bull laughed throatily into his collarbone, sending prickles of goosebumps down his back.

“You’re so sensitive,” Bull marveled again, using the backs of his knuckles to brush against Dorian’s stomach.

Dorian sucked in a surprised breath and arched back against Bull who made a deep approving sound in the back of his throat.

“Fill it,” Bull growled, and while holding his hand over the tub, Dorian actually twisted around to give him a withering look.

“Oh come on,” he complained. “That one was weak.”

Bull laughed in surprise. “I don’t usually have complaints about my performance.”

“I’ll have you know I’m a top-notch complainer.”

Bull grabbed his face in both hands and kissed him.

Dorian lost control of the water and it hit Bull in the side as he pinwheeled. They both broke apart, laughing and dripping.

“Well, I suppose that’s enough,” said Bull peering into the tub. “We’ll displace it anyway.”

“ _We_?” said Dorian. “This is _my_ bath. You were supposed to massage my neck and wash my hair.”

“Eh, I can do that in the tub.”

“Now hold on, this tub isn’t big enough for the- no, nope, don’t bother,” sighed Dorian. “I heard it before I was finished.”

“Ah-“ said Bull.

“Yes, yes, that one too.”

Bull unclasped his shoulder strap then bent down to take off his knee brace.

“Really, this is just absurd,” Dorian fumed. “Are you taking over my bath?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m not getting in.”

“Fine, then you can watch me get myself off. I’m not picky.”

Dorian swallowed involuntarily, and Bull laughed, standing up and kicking off his knee brace before putting his thumbs in his trousers.

“Last chance,” he offered.

“Well the water is-“

Bull pulled down his trousers and Dorian’s tongue stopped moving.

“Errrg,” he managed.

Bull smirked.

Dorian had seen Bull naked. Practically _everyone_ had seen Bull naked. Traipsing across the Emerald Graves Bull had spent much of his time in the river each night washing the mud off his trousers. His trousers were not usually on while he scrubbed them.

 _Everyone_ had seen Bull.

All of him.

And yet Dorian had never seen him quite so naked.

He realized Bull was without his painted vitaar down one shoulder, and his whole body was tense and glistening as he lifted a foot over the rim of the tub and stepped in. He promptly slipped and fell awkwardly, sputtering.

“I did try to warn you,” said Dorian angelically. “The water is as cold as it is from the atmosphere. As we’re in the mountains, I believe it’s-“

“ _Freezing_!” bellowed Bull, splashing a huge handful at Dorian.

Dorian only waved a hand and a wave of warm water hit him in the face. He sputtered, dignified, so that droplets flew off his mustache.

He waved his hand again, and the water Bull was sitting in was suddenly steaming.

Bull yelped at the shift in temperature, and Dorian crossed over, shoving Bull’s remaining leg and arm in helpfully as Bull grunted, trying to find the bottom with his own.

When he was settled, he glared suspiciously at Dorian. “You’re really not getting in?”

Dorian glanced at him and for a moment was truly speechless. Bull was breathtaking, backlit by the fire, coated in water rolling over his hard muscles, his enormous arms framing the tub.

“In a minute,” he managed, and it came out hoarsely.

Iron Bull harrumphed, but Dorian could detect a pleased note in it, and he settled back, closing his eyes.

Dorian flitted to his vanity where he kept his oils, perfumes, cosmetics, and shampoos. He brought back bottles in his hands and then stopped as Bull slitted open his good blue on blue eye.

 _Smalt_ , Dorian remembered. _Damn._

“Could I-“ he began diffidently, unsure if Bull would find this ridiculous, but Bull’s face split into a wide smile.

“Yeah?” he asked. “Nobody has washed _my_ back in-“

“Yes, yes,” said Dorian hurriedly. “I know.”

Bull laughed under his breath, even as Dorian soaped his hands together and began lathering around Bull’s neck.

Much like the rest of him, it was corded iron, and hard as rocks. But Dorian let fire settle on the tips of his fingers and a tiny shock on the tips of his thumbs and dug in. Bull arched almost out of the water when he encountered the first knot, but then held on.

“Andraste’s ass,” Bull managed.

“Quite,” said Dorian smugly. “I’ve got a bit more to work with when it comes to massages. You’re wretchedly tangled you know.”

“Not as tangled as I bet you are.”

Dorian dug his thumb in particularly hard and Bull let out an undignified yelp.

“That was also weak.”

“Critiquing isn’t exactly how it goes with most of my seductions.”

“Who’s seducing whom here?” Dorian mocked. “You’re the one going to have your back scratched.”

This time Bull turned around. “That was low hanging fruit.”

“Your favorite kind,” Dorian replied dryly.

“Damn straight. You know deer can get drunk off of apples.”

“What?”

“Low hanging fruit. Apples fall. Apples rot. Apples become alcoholic still. Deer eat fruit from ground. Anyway, you can marinate your own deer that way. They don’t even feel getting shot and the venison is so sweet.”

“You’re a man of many talents,” Dorian teased.

“Mmm,” agreed Bull in a throaty rumble that made Dorian shift his stance uncomfortably. He was still wearing his tight leather pants, and the water was causing them to chafe against suddenly taut areas.

“So are you,” said Bull after a moment, his head flopping forward as Dorian slowly scratched his nails into the short shaved hair at the base of Bull’s scalp. It was oddly satisfying to rub his fingers over it, and it seemed the Iron Bull may have _never_ had a scalp massage, a necessity that Dorian had not realized was an odd luxury outside of Tevinter.

“Hmm?” he said, concentrating at the soft spot behind Bull’s ear.

Bull shifted uncomfortably in the confines of the tub, and his cock suddenly surfaced.

Dorian wasn’t sure, but he thought Bull blushed in the firelight, and to tease him, he pulled hard on one horn above the spot.

“I said-“ gasped Bull, holding tight to the sides of the tub, his legs visibly straining against the side. “You’re a man of many talents.”

“I’m sorry,” said Dorian wickedly. “I wasn’t listening. But feel free to keep listing my talents.”

“Only the superficial ones right?” asked Bull.

And Dorian stopped smiling, let go of the horn, and returned to get more scented soap for his palms, returning only to rub them briskly over Iron Bull’s shoulders. He tried not to notice how broad and smooth they were beneath his fingers.

“Are you going to soap all of me?” Bull asked when the silence had stretched elastically.

“We’ll see,” said Dorian from behind him.

“Come do my arm out front. I want to see if you can give a hand massage too.”

“Needy, needy,” clucked Dorian, circling around to Bull’s elbow.

“Wanting, wanting,” corrected Bull, reeling him around to face him. He stared seriously at Dorian’s face. “You’re so beautiful.”

Dorian’s glance darted away to the fire in the grate.

“Well obviously we don’t need to compliment you. Everyone has eyes.”

“Only one,” said Bull cheerfully. “I’ll take half the compliment though.”

Dorian smiled in spite of himself. “It’s impossible not to look at you. And I don’t mind if you want the hand massage.”

“Nah, another time. C’mere.” He tugged another step out of Dorian until his hips were flush with the tub and Bull’s slick wet hand was halfway up his arm, splattering water over his tense stomach, sending another ripple of shivering goosebumps up it.

Iron Bull looked entranced, his eyes glued to Dorian’s hips. He swallowed, and Dorian had to look away at the sheer awe Bull had in his face.

“I’m not going to get in that bath,” Dorian said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “There isn’t enough room.”

“That’s true,” said Bull thoughtfully. The wolfish grin returned. “You’ll have to sit on my lap.”

Dorian groaned.

“Low hanging fruit,” Bull reminded him.

“I did stumble into that one.”

“I’d have preferred if you backed into it.”

“And who’s to say that’s how I’d prefer it?”

Bull’s smile retreated into a serious, considering look. His eyebrows drew down into a dark half smile and his arm suddenly let go of Dorian’s to palm over the front of his pants. Even through the supple leather, Dorian was unmistakably hard, and he jerked in a quick, ragged gasp even as he batted Bull’s hand away.

“You dirty cheat,” he accused.

Bull smiled smugly, settling himself back in the tub. “That’s me.”

“You can’t _make_ me-“ but Dorian trailed off, because quick as a blink, Iron Bull had stood up, all seven feet of him and looming. He was glistening wet in the firelight, and Dorian had to swallow hard because the bottom just dropped out of his stomach and his knees were weak.

What was it that Josephine had whispered to herself? Cullen had told him and it had been hilarious at the time, but now Dorian thought he knew how she felt.

“Dorian,” said Iron Bull pleasantly, but in his deepest, most shuddery voice. “Come here.”

Unwillingly, Dorian stepped forward, his legs numb.

Bull sank back into the tub. “Don’t be an idiot,” he grumbled, taking hold of his own cock in his hand and loosely fisting it with a lewd slap on the water.

Dorian scrambled out of his trousers, realizing he hadn’t taken his boots off when he had to undignified hop across the floor. Bull stopped stroking himself to laugh, and Dorian splashed into the tub as obnoxiously as possible, sloshing water over the stone floor and soaking the carpet under his bed. He glared at Bull as he sat, facing him in the water, knees to his chest, cock aching between his thighs and stomach, squatting somewhere on top of Bull’s own drawn up knees.

“Come here,” repeated Bull impatiently, tugging on one arm.

Dorian resisted, and Bull stopped at once, a question in his eyes.

Dorian sighed noisily, and allowed himself to be pulled so that his hands were on Bull’s chest and then Bull was kissing him so soundly Dorian forgot they were in water. And he forgot they were naked. He only tried to climb on top of Bull and ended up kneeing him hard in the abdomen so that Bull wheezed out a breath.

“Sorry,” smirked Dorian, not sounding sorry at all.

“Come here,” growled Bull a third time, and he flipped Dorian around and pulled him to his chest, pinning him in place with his arms.

Dorian made a mewling sound feeling Bull’s cock rammed up against his ass and lower back.He waited for Bull to make a comment, but realized he was breathing hard into his ear.

Dorian turned his accusing gaze. “You’re not-“

“Shut up,” said Bull, kissing him roughly on the mouth. “No. I just…you took me by surprise.”

“I am sorry about your liver.”

“I meant…you took me by surprise how much I want you.”

Dorian swallowed, and the sound was loud in the suddenly still water of the tub, only Bull’s breathing and the crackle of the fire offsetting it.

Bull tongued at the hollow in the triangle of Dorian’s collarbone, lapping at the water there and Dorian shifted.

“It’s because you’re so damn sensitive,” Bull growled. “It’s all I can see. All I can think about. Everything I want to do with you. Every time you shiver. Every time you get goosebumps.”

Dorian noticed Bull said “do with you” instead of “do to you,” and he relaxed in the cooling water, heating it up warmer a few degrees with a thought.

Bull hummed appreciatively in his ear. “Hang on. Where are those soaps?”

After awkward reaching and angling of arms, Bull came back with one and lovingly shoved fistfuls of water into Dorian’s hair before lathering it.

“No, Bull,” Dorian protested. “My hair isn’t clean.”

“And that’s why I’m washing it.”

“No, really, I’ll wash it later. I thought you’d want-“

“To wash your body? Don’t worry about it.”

“I am worried about it now,” said Dorian snappishly.

“I’ll get there,” Bull promised in a dark voice.

Dorian shifted his weight under Bull’s hands and Bull chuckled.

Dorian had been using magic in his fingers when massaging Bull’s scalp, but the Qunari didn’t have any. So Dorian couldn’t figure out how he was doing it. How he was turning a fine upstanding son of a magister into a top heavy flower, his head lolling on his neck, leaving it elongated for Bull to suck on it and make him thrash in the water, sluicing it over the floor.

Bull grinned against him. “Oh, I’m going to have a lot of fun with you.”

Dorian shivered, and Bull’s pinning arm protectively tightened. “Don’t worry,” he added more gently. “Only fun you want.”

To test if that was true, Dorian twisted in Bull’s arms, and Bull let him, carefully carding handfuls of suds away from Dorian’s eyes into the water and replacing it with huge spade like handfuls to wash him clean.

Not breaking eye contact, Dorian reached out and grabbed Bull’s cock where it was floating on the water.

Bull froze, one hand in Dorian’s hair, eye watching cautiously.

Bull’s cock, like the rest of him, was enormous. It was proportionate to his size, but thick as Dorian’s four fingers across and heavy in his hands, even in the water. He carefully ran the tips of his finger over the smooth shaft up to the ridge around the glans. Iron Bull grunted, shifting to give himself more room, but there was none.

Dorian still looked him in the eye.

Slowly, as if not to startle him, Bull let his hand fall from Dorian’s hair.

Dorian began going hand over hand on Bull’s cock, varying the pressure, pulling it inexorably longer as it filled and curved. He stared at it, then up at Bull, who was still silent, before he reached under to finger the sac and found it hardened inside the soft skin.

“So close?” Dorian was surprised.

“I told you,” Bull said, his voice tight. “But let go, not yet.”

“You’re close,” Dorian repeated.

“I know,” Bull grinned a sharp-edged feral grin. “I like to get close.”

Dorian stared at him, his own face heating. “Is that what you’d like to do to me?”

“If you want me to,” said Bull offhandedly, his gaze traveling Dorian’s face for signs of microexpressions. “I’ve been thinking up some things.”

“Yes?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“And come here for a minute.”

Dorian allowed himself to be turned around, but squirmed against the feel of Bull tight and hot up his spine.

Bull grunted in his ear, obviously trying to still his jerking hips with a strength of will that matched the rest of him.

Instead, with his big hand, he gently guided Dorian’s head to tilt back against his shoulder.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered in Dorian’s ear.

Dorian hesitated, but then did.

“Good,” Bull said quietly, just under his breath. “Try to relax.”

Immediately Dorian tensed up.

“What did I just say?” Bull teased.

Dorian’s eyes popped open. “Well it’s hard to relax when you say the one thing that’s guaranteed to make me think I-“

He couldn’t finish because one of Bull’s hands had curved into the inside of his thigh, holding it open, the knuckles brushing against his cock. The other had fluttered up his belly under the water and was skimming patterns between his chest and abdomen until his skin had prickled up all over and his leg was straining to snap shut under Bull’s fingers.

“So sensitive,” rumbled Bull. “What’s that word you hate?”

“Hate?” mumbled Dorian, his head turning sharply into the scent of Bull’s neck. He began trailing hot open-mouthed kisses around the Bull’s neck.

“Yes, _touch starved_ ,” mocked Iron Bull lightly, and they were both surprised when Dorian’s hips jolted against Bull’s restraining hand.

“Or not hate,” said Bull thoughtfully, stroking even lower.

Dorian moaned into his skin. “Stop talking,” he ordered.

“I’ll remember you said that,” Bull said, squeezing the flesh on the inside of Dorian’s thigh. Dorian jerked.

Bull pulled his hand up Dorian’s side, carefully along his ribs and Dorian keened, a surprising sound even from him, ticklish and writhing against Bull’s broad back, and making Bull pant at the friction.

“I haven’t even touched your cock yet,” he mumbled into Dorian’s ear and Dorian’s eyes snapped open angrily as he slanted a glare.

“I _know_ ,” he complained. “You’d better take it in hand.”

“I-“

“Heard it. I know.”

Gratifyingly, Bull shifted the hand around Dorians thigh to the back and thumbed at the crack as Dorian leapt forward in a huge splash of water, mewling.

Bull laughed a deep, rolling laugh. “I see what you mean. A _long_ time then. Hang on.”

To Dorian’s infinite relief, he took the arm pinning Dorian to him and curled the long thick fingers around the base of Dorian’s cock.

Dorian’s hips sputtered uselessly in the water, his head snapping back against Bull’s collarbone. He squeezed his eyes shut again, but Bull didn’t move his hands until Dorian slitted open a frustrated eye.

“What are you waiting for?”

“You.”

“GO. Please, Maker, _go_.”

“You’re so expressive,” Bull said quietly, seeming awestruck.

Dorian didn’t have time for Bull to be awestruck and wriggled his hips ineffectually against the loose circle of Bull’s fingers, seeking stimulation.

Bull seemed to come back to himself, and he grasped Dorian’s sac between his fingers and rolled it while Dorian hissed out between his teeth.

“Fuck,” he sputtered. “This is so stu-“

Bull stroked his cock in one long, smooth motion, twisting expertly at the end before popping off so that Dorian slapped the water.

Dorian jerked and his breath stopped. Just when he opened his mouth to draw another ragged one, to beg for more, Bull bit down on his neck sucking hard and set a punishing pace with his hand, his other one curling into the meat of Dorian’s ass and anchoring him in place with bruising fingertips.

Dorian pitched, splashing water outside the tub and followed Bull’s pace with his jittering, ineffectual hips until the very end when he glanced sidelong at Bull who was busy roughly kissing the wet corner of his mouth and nipping the droplets of warm water from the underside of his jaw. Bull saw the look and nodded once. Permission.

Without needing to be told, Bull moved his hand off Dorian’s ass and pulled him down hard beneath the surface of the water onto his own rock hard lap, his other hand pumping him steadily through as Dorian writhed in Bull’s arms, coming in stripes across the surface of the water and his own stomach before liquifying, boneless and weightless, into Bull’s waiting arms.

Iron Bull was breathing hard.

“Wait,” he said, when Dorian tried to reach blindly for him. “Just…give me a minute.”

A minute had never felt so good to Dorian, nor so infinite in the quietly crackling room, the warm water enveloping his shoulders as he floated gently, dimly aware of Bull’s labored breaths, his knuckles white against the sides of the tub.

Soft hands enveloped him, and he blinked sleepy, contented eyes at Bull who was washing him clean with handfuls of water before he pulled Dorian up under his arms and they both stood in the tub, Dorian suddenly aware of Bull’s erection pressed against his back. He turned awkwardly.

Bull shook his head.

“Not while we’re both standing in this bucket.”

“Sit down,” Dorian said sharply.

Bull glanced at him, testing him, a slow smile hitching its way across his face, stretching white an invisible scar at the side of his mouth. Dorian climbed out of the standing tub even as Bull sank back down into the dirty water.

“Do what you promised,” said Dorian quietly, kneeling next to Bull and staring at the clenched place twitching in his jaw.

“What?” Bull glanced at him, his eye glittering with lust. Dorian knew from that confusion alone – Bull, who was usually so sharp – that he was close. Drowning in lust then.

“Stroke yourself off for me,” Dorian said quietly. “Let me watch how you like it.”

Bull groaned, his legs stretching and heels digging against the side of the tub. He was much too big for it, and the tub buckled under his weight as his back slammed against the other side, his hand already fisted around his cock.

“Scoot down,” Dorian purred. “Surface up so I can see it.”

Bull complied, growling in the back of his throat what he was going to do to Dorian as soon as he was done.

“I could make it last, if I wanted,” Dorian reminded him angelically. “I could take all the warmth from the water each time you were close.”

Bull hissed between his teeth, and Dorian watched the way his wrist jerked, as if he hadn’t quite controlled that motion.

Dorian smiled with too many teeth. “I think I’ll try it sometime.”

“You-“ panted Bull, “brat-“

“Oh so you _have_ heard of me,” Dorian said mock delightedly. “I told you as much. I’m an expert complainer.”

Bull groaned, digging his heels into the tub as his hips bucked. There was a high sound of metal straining on metal.

“You’re going to break the tub,” Dorian warned.

“I won’t break the tub,” Bull grunted.

“Then slow down.”

“Can’t.”

“You’re going to break-“

“I’m not!”

“You’re-“

“I am,” said Bull with a grunt, and he stiffened, his cock spurting in loud hisses against the water, his knee locked in place, and just as his shoulders softened, as his back relaxed from the strain against the metal, it buckled, no longer held in place.

With a huge crunching, the bolts holding the metal of the washtub sheared away, and the side of the tub broke open, flooding water everywhere.

Dorian was laughing, Bull was cursing, but he picked himself up grumblingly even as Dorian put his magically warmed hands against Bull’s dripping chest checking: “You haven’t cut yourself, have you?”

“No,” growled Bull. “Stupid cheap tub.”

“It wasn’t exactly made for a Qunari,” said Dorian, backing up, his hands still holding one of Bull’s own.

Bull grunted, eyeing Dorian over. “What are you doing?” he asked suspiciously as Dorian sat on the mattress and then scooted back up to the headboard, lounging against the pillows, turning his hips to the best effect.

Bull stared at him for a long moment. “You do know how to please a guy.”

Dorian flushed prettily. “You sure you don’t want to hold my arms?”

Bull looked as if he was warring with himself but then a slow smile stole across his face. “Oh yeah,” he murmured. “I was going to take you apart.”

Dorian hid his face into his arm and groaned theatrically, then jumped when the bed tilted under Bull’s weight as he crawled up next to Dorian and laid out on one hip, propping his head up to look at him.

Dorian glanced at him then began to trace a finger over Bull’s chest idly.

“Why don’t you like to be looked at?” Bull asked, as if genuinely curious.

“I do like to be looked at.”

“You like to be admired.”

“Of course. Don’t you?”

“But not looked at?”

Dorian was cautious. “How do you mean?”

“You said you didn’t want me looking at you.”

Dorian laughed. “You know what I mean. Metaphorically. You’re too clever. Notice too many accidental out loud faces I make.”

“And now? When we’re alone?”

Dorian paused. How did you tell someone the sheer unbearable intimacy of his gaze was disconcerting? He hitched a smile in place, circling Bull’s nipple with a fingertip, and digging in the nail when he didn’t elicit a response.

Bull’s breath hitched.

“My illusion,” Dorian said softly. “It’s harder to hold without distraction. Without the glamor.”

“The glamor is the illusion,” said Bull, tilting his chin up with a single finger against his throat. Dorian shivered involuntarily and Bull’s pupil dilated. “You’re the most beautiful like this, with all the other things stripped away.”

Dorian tried to jerk away, but this time Bull didn’t let go, and so he closed his eyes tightly against the sight of kindness, and Bull’s thumb brushed at his eyelashes.

“Turn on your stomach,” said Iron Bull, and grateful, Dorian complied.

It was only after he was stretched out did he realize that Bull had done this for _him._ Had let him turn away, and he buried his flaming face into the covers in shame and gratitude. Bull placed a big warm hand at the top of his back and was rubbing down his spine comfortingly.

“Hey. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

Dorian nodded his head into the sheet, not even sure what he was agreeing to. He had a sneaking suspicion this was only the first of the broth Bull had mentioned, and that Dorian wouldn’t be let off so easily in the future.

Bull’s fingers were warm and spread apart, and Dorian realized after a minute the reason they weren’t moving was that Bull would move his palm to different parts of Dorian’s back and pause, tensing his fingers, feeling at the nerve endings and knots in his back before moving on.

“What’s the prognosis?” Dorian asked lightly when Bull returned his hand to rest at the base of his neck, gentling without speaking.

“Well I get why you’re sensitive, besides being touch starved,” said Bull with a satirical twist to his voice. “I guess you just shove everything you’re feeling right into your shoulders. I haven’t even tested your hips.”

“Don’t,” said Dorian testily. “Unless it’s to raise them up.”

“You’re impatient for just having gotten off.”

“Maybe I was disappointed that someone broke my tub.”

He felt a long, unexpected lick down his spine and squirmed. Bull’s hot breath fanned across his shoulder blades. “I don’t really leave people disappointed.”

Dorian glared over his shoulder. The angle wasn’t good, and his neck was stiff, but he managed to squint at Bull. “Are you going to d-“

He gasped when Bull took a handful of his ass and pulled. His other hand began smoothing his other cheek apart. Bull reached painfully over Dorian, leaning his weight into his back before snagging a bottle of oil he used for his skin off the vanity.

“Okay if I use this?” Bull asked casually. “I usually bring my own, but-“

“Yes,” Dorian agreed quickly. “As much as you want.” His hands ached from where he had snatched the sheets tightly between his fists.

An obscene squelching sound and Dorian arched backwards when the cold liquid hit the lower part of his back and dripped backward between his thighs, pooling against his balls and dripping down the curve of his cock trapped beneath his stomach.

“Bull,” Dorian said threadily.

Bull kissed his temple. “You’re so quick. Usually I have to play for half an hour before-“

“Stop talking, damn you-“ Dorian snapped.

“That’s the second time you’ve said that,” Bull smiled angelically. “This time, I think you need to be quiet.”

“Wh-“

“No. No words from you, but feel free to make as many sounds as you want.”

Dorian opened his mouth to say _exactly_ the words when Bull dipped the flat of his hand between his cheeks and he arched against the contact with his traitorous body shivering at the contact.

He hadn’t been worked open in years. Not like this. Not with the time Bull was taking to carefully run the crescent of his thumbnail on the tender inside near the rim. Not with the hot licks and nips to the inside of his quickly shaking thighs. Not the tiny hot tip of the tongue on his hole as he screamed a muffled wordless cry into the sheets and realized the hot wetness beneath him was his leaking precum all over his stomach.

He writhed against it and without warning Bull flipped him over to see, Dorian’s cock curving upright along his stomach, springing to attention in the free air before without warning Bull swallowed it to the hilt and Dorian’s hips snapped without his meaning to into Bull’s mouth fucking him roughly, desperately, until Bull, chuckling, held him down with two hands. Bull’s fingers dug into the curve of his legs as he rutted uselessly, Bull going down on him. He glanced up at Dorian, and wordlessly took one of his legs and bent it over his horn, doing the same with the other.

Dorian watched him breathlessly, flushed and overstimulated, shivering with the edge that Bull had left hanging. Bull _heaved_. Dorian yelped.

Bull had pulled him up onto his upper back and propped his hips in the air with his own hands as he transferred his thick punishing tongue from Dorian’s cock to jamming into Dorian’s hole, rimming the outside ruthlessly and then slowly, so slowly, fucking him with his tongue.

It wasn’t long enough, and it wasn’t enough stimulation, and Dorian broke the rules:

“ _Please_ ,” he begged, throwing an arm over his eyes, his face nestled in the sweaty dark crook of his elbow. His hips jerked ineffectually. “Please. A finger, even. Please.”

Immediately, his hips were set down, and Dorian opened his eyes with a desperate gurgle as Bull sat up, his good eye glittering with malice as he grinned, wiping his mouth obscenely.

“You weren’t supposed to talk. And you were getting too close. I’ll let you wait for a minute and you can watch me.”

Bull pulled at his own cock, hard and full against his thigh. His jaw tightened with pleasure.

Dorian greedily held out both his hands in mute offering, and when Bull nodded, dragged himself across the bed and began to suck the tip of Bull’s cock so forcefully and so well that Bull found himself jerking his own hips in time with Dorian’s.

“Do you-“ Bull paused, grunting, getting himself under control and then spooling apart under Dorian’s careful suckles to the underside of his shaft. “Do you want me to pull us off together right now?”

“No,” and Dorian seemed to have forgotten he wasn’t to speak. He stopped and looked up beneath his lashes at Bull. He smiled in self satisfaction at the hungry, desperate look on Bull’s face. “I want you to fuck me. You’re supposed to be taking _me_ apart, after all.”

Guilt slammed Bull’s features, and Dorian cursed himself for not letting his torment end quickly.

Instead, Bull made him lay facedown across his lap as he worked a finger into Dorian’s ass and carefully stroked with tiny, feather light touches, against his prostate as Dorian writhed against his bare thighs, his teeth gritted and ass clenched against the intrusion.

Bull stretched him on a second finger, the two as large as a regular man’s cock would have been and Dorian moaned as Bull took up a sudden, staccato pace, jabbing into him as Bull’s other arm pulled Dorian’s chest up, bending him like a bow.

The sensation, the angle, was incredible even as Dorian fought to lie flat, unable to control the push of the fingers and cursing Bull for a whoreson scheming cheat as Bull laughed uncontrollably, fucking no faster until Dorian began to shiver in spasmodic thrashes, his head jerking on his neck, and Bull bit down on his shoulder.

“You’re coming into it now,” he warned. “It will be more than you’re used to.”

“F-F-fuck—y-y-“

“I’m trying,” Bull grinned, and Dorian struggled so hard against Bull to try to throttle him that he accidentally aligned the angle perfectly and without warning came so hard and so strongly he screamed and blacked out, his body spasming even as he regained consciousness in Bull’s arms.

“You still want me to fuck you?” chuckled Bull darkly.

“O-over the horns,” Dorian managed in a ravaged whisper, and Bull stopped laughing at once, a low guttural hiss coming from his mouth instead, and Dorian smirked at him. He winced when Bull pulled his fingers out, but instead Bull put his head down and guided Dorian’s limp legs like he would pull them over his shoulders. The horns hit the back of Dorian’s knees as an impenetrable wall and then – and _then –_

Dorian cried out against the stretch, but it was inexorable. Bull was rubbing his stomach, concern etching his features, but Dorian kept gesturing with his hands, needing more.

“ _Green_ ,” he finally whispered, remembering. “More.”

Bull relaxed and slipped in another few inches, finally breaching the ring of tight muscle. Dorian gasped. Bull grunted. Then he slid all the way in and Dorian had never felt so full. His prostate was jammed against the most sensation it had ever experienced, with no room for missing it.

Bull pulled out slightly, shifting, and Dorian gasped. “…Yellow,” he whispered.

Bull paused, holding onto Dorian’s hip. “What can I do?”

“I might…I might…”

Bull understood and grabbed Dorian’s softening cock. Dorian whimpered at the contact, the painful intensity of it, trying to shrink away and only tightening impossibly around Bull. Bull grunted, shifting, hit Dorian’s prostate. Dorian shifted, the cycle continuing.

“Green,” Dorian panted, when it became evident they were at a stalemate. “Fuck me, please. And…and don’t let go.”

Bull grinned at him. “Post come play, I love it.”

Dorian was too flushed to even remember how to speak. He couldn’t think, could barely breathe. His dick was in pain, and yet his balls were filling, the blood rushing to his glands, his cock, his face. He was drowning in the sensations. The overstimulation. The size of Bull, moving slowly, rocking almost.

“You’re so…so…tight,” Bull murmured. “Fuck you’re hot like this, against my horns. You can’t get your hips to set down. You’re stuck letting me fuck you as slowly as I want, and I can feel you getting hard again. You’re _shivering_.”

“I need-“ And Dorian heard it even as he didn’t have the shame to grimace. “I _need to_ – “

“I know,” said Bull, his face soft and proud. “Just hold on. I’ll go first and bring you off in my mouth. I’ll-“

But without warning, at that mention of Bull’s mouth alone, Dorian came, squirting all over his own chest as he was fucked, the cum drizzling towards his sweating throat, his nipples brown and tight in the air.

“Fuck, Dorian. That was…that was…” Bull couldn’t speak, only slammed into Dorian twice more, Dorian crying out in sweet agony of ecstasy, his prostate shivering out another limp sluicing of cum before Bull came, filling Dorian up so much he wasn’t sure where Bull’s dick would go. He could feel it running out of him, and then felt strangely empty as Bull slowly drew back, and inch at a time, Dorian’s body collapsing in on itself.

They both lay in the bed for long minutes, not speaking. Dorian’s legs were on fire. He hadn’t used the backs of many of those muscles even hiking through the wilderness with Adaar. He had come three times. He hadn’t come so many times since he was a teenager. He knew Bull would be good in bed, but this so far surpassed any experience he had ever had it hadn’t even felt like sex by the end. It had felt like drinking an entire bottle of wine. Or accidentally ingesting twice the lyrium dosage. He had felt on fire. Merely sensations attached to a body. He had blacked out once, and whited out half a dozen times. His vision, even in the darkness of the evening, was spotted behind his eyes.

Just when Dorian was going to drift off, Bull rolled off the bed with a groan.

Dorian knew it was only polite to bid his guest goodbye, and opened his eyes and turned his head: as much effort as he could muster at the moment.

To his surprise, Bull had taken one of his cosmetics cloths from the vanity and dipped it into the water covering the floor. Wryly, he smiled at Dorian.

“I didn’t want to ask you for water.”

“There’s some in the ewer.” Dorian realized his voice was hoarse.

“Thanks.”

Dorian closed his eyes again, but added: “I don’t have any cups.”

“Cups?”

“For drinking the water.”

Iron Bull chuckled, and the bed dipped. Dorian opened his eyes, frowning, and Bull bent over him, carefully wiping him down, starting under his eyes and cleaning the sweat from his neckline, all the way down. Dorian was so sensitive he actually flinched and hissed when Bull moved him, and Bull made sympathetic clucking noises.

“I’ll be gentler next time,” he promised.

“You were gentle enough this time,” Dorian said, slightly peevish. “Too gentle. Next time, just fuck me and get out.”

The cloth stilled, and he cracked a guilty eye. It had sounded harsher than his teasing intended.

“Come here,” he said instead. “Your face is a mess.”

Bull smiled, and Dorian summoned water to dip a clean part of the cloth in.

“The bed is ruined, but I’m too tired to move,” he said regretfully.

Bull only stood again, glanced down at Dorian, and when Dorian realized what he was going to do and began to protest, it was already too late. Bull had picked Dorian up like a bride, kicked the top sheet gone, and laid him back down. Even still, the sheets smelled of sweat and sex.

“Don’t leave,” Dorian found himself saying unexpectedly as the Iron Bull turned to find his trousers.

Bull turned back, surprised, and this time Dorian held up the arm for Bull to climb under. Bull smiled crookedly.

“My haven’t you turned around in a short time.”

“You are very persuasive.”

“Yeah. I get that a lot.”

“And _humble_ I see.”

Bull smiled smugly, but crawled next to Dorian. His blue eye watched Dorian’s face as he traced his fingers on the inside of one of his arms. Dorian tilted his face up, his expression mock-serious. “What’s the prognosis now? All better? Less tangled?”

Bull leaned down and kissed him quietly. “Not even close,” he grinned. “I suggest I make another house call in a few days.”

Dorian buried his face, groaning, into Bull’s shoulder. “You’re terrible,” he mumbled into the bed.

“Actually, I have it on good authority that I’m _fantastic_.”

“Shut up.”

“I wish you would. I had to tell you three-“

“I’ll zap you with lightning if you don’t stop.”

“The stuff you used in the scalp massage? I’m into it. Want to experiment.”

“Really.”

“Oh yeah, I think I’d really get into the electric play.”

“You are-“

“The best?” guessed Bull brightly.

Dorian began to laugh. “Maker help me,” he sighed, touching his lips to the corner of Bull’s slowly curving smile. “You really are.”

**Author's Note:**

> Appreciate any and all comments, truly. I never get to talk about Dorian or Iron Bull irl so the internet is wonderful that way.


End file.
